I Am Beautifully Bipolar

Living with bipolar disorder, there is a fine line between amazing and awful. Because of our unique brain chemistry, we must learn to walk it well. We must master the art of resilience in a life skewed by mental illness. We are forced to learn how to rise often. We still feel a need to thrive just like everyone else but there are times when we must focus on mere survival instead.

Does this make us weak? No. Truly quite the contrary. We fight battles the rest of the world knows nothing about and this often means waking up to fight the same demons that left us so tired from the night before. It takes bravery and strength.

I love to explain this with two words: “beautifully broken.” The truth is, however, we are not “broken” at all. We are simply different. We are strong by default because our strength is what keeps us alive. Living with the pain and uncertainty of what tomorrow will look like in silence is no easy feat. Constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. You are a soldier. You are a warrior.

We have the same emotions as everyone else but we can feel them more deeply. Our roaring emotions can feel unstoppable and sometimes so can we. It’s scary to quickly turn into someone you’re not when everything turns gray. It’s a battle we must win over and over again or the consequences could be fatal. An emotional baseline is faint and every emotion can feel like an illusion. Stability becomes a luxury we long for and one most people take for granted. Our negative emotions can be overwhelmingly debilitating. But on the other end of the spectrum, we are capable of loving harder, laughing louder and having more confidence.

This makes a bipolar brain unique in the very best way. It feels like I’m blessed and cursed all at the same time and it’s so confusing. I need not be ashamed and sometimes this means removing toxic people from my life. It is heartbreaking when the ones we love so deeply don’t understand us no matter how hard we try to explain.

It’s a disorder not a decision and something that must be lived to fully grasp this seemingly invisible condition. It can be the loneliest feeling in the world. We must learn early in life to accept the fact there is no such thing as perfect. We must learn not to compare our lives to the pictures people have painted of theirs.

Like an amazing work of art, only some will be able to appreciate the beauty that lies within us. We must learn to enjoy the good times to their fullest because just knowing we can feel that way again can be the only comfort when we are drowning. It becomes a life raft we won’t find elsewhere. Often forced to learn the hard way a life spent waiting for the next episode is no life at all. They say life only gives its hardest battles to its toughest soldiers and apparently, life believes you are a bad ass. And life is absolutely right!